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Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) vs Portnox comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 27, 2024

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
5.3
Cisco ISE support is praised for expertise but criticized for slow responses and inconsistent quality, especially with complex issues.
Sentiment score
4.5
Portnox offers praised customer support, though users seek improvements in local services, ticketing, and response time.
I rate the technical support as one out of ten.
 

Room For Improvement

Sentiment score
4.5
Cisco ISE requires improved integration, usability, and performance, with enhanced features and efficiency for better user adoption and experience.
Sentiment score
6.2
Portnox needs enhanced integration, improved scalability, refined GUI, device-based licensing, faster response, and expanded agentless coverage.
They are very poor in asset classification and should focus on improving the preauthentication profiling, especially for NAC use cases.
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
7.0
Cisco ISE is scalable for enterprises but requires proper design, planning, and hardware considerations for efficient deployment.
Sentiment score
8.3
Portnox is valued for its scalability and flexibility, supporting thousands of endpoints through a convenient license-based model.
Factors like architecture, business nature, and legal limitations such as GDPR affect it.
 

Setup Cost

No sentiment score available
Cisco Identity Services Engine pricing is competitive but complex, with tiered licensing and additional costs potentially impacting smaller businesses.
No sentiment score available
Portnox offers scalable pricing with annual fees, device charges, and enterprise features, though some users dislike subscription-only licensing.
Making large organizational costs significant.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
7.7
Cisco Identity Services Engine is stable and reliable, with occasional update and scaling challenges, and generally effective support resolution.
Sentiment score
4.9
Portnox is mostly reliable with positive feedback, but CORE faces criticism due to deprecated status and support issues.
The stability of Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) is poor for certain use cases, like authentication.
 

Valuable Features

Sentiment score
8.0
Cisco ISE provides robust network control, seamless Cisco integration, and enhances security with policy management, zero-trust, and BYOD support.
Sentiment score
8.3
Portnox provides scalable, user-friendly network security with diverse integration, robust monitoring, efficient management, and strong compliance tools.
Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) is very good at device administration.
 

Categories and Ranking

Cisco Identity Services Eng...
Ranking in Network Access Control (NAC)
1st
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
140
Ranking in other categories
Cisco Security Portfolio (1st)
Portnox
Ranking in Network Access Control (NAC)
9th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
17
Ranking in other categories
ZTNA (13th), Passwordless Authentication (6th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of November 2024, in the Network Access Control (NAC) category, the mindshare of Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) is 29.2%, down from 31.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Portnox is 2.3%, up from 2.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Network Access Control (NAC)
 

Featured Reviews

Rohit-Joshi - PeerSpot reviewer
Enables us to ensure that any machine that comes into the network is patched and secure
Posturing is the most valuable feature. There are other tools available that can do some of their other features, like network authentication. The posturing was something because of the nature of the industry that we are in. There are people who go outside for work. Their machines are at times not in the network, and not patched properly. We don't know when they're going to come back, whether it is in a good state, whether it has antivirus, whether it's installed on those machines. Posturing is something that we have made our baseline policy that whenever a machine comes back to our network, it should have a certain level of the operating system and a level of security and antivirus installed. We couldn't have done this posturing without Cisco ISE. This is its greatest feature. It does help me to detect and remediate my network. It enables me to detect any external threat that comes to my network and remediate. If a machine comes into my network that does not qualify per my baseline policy, I have a policy that the machine gets redirected to where it can be patched and remediated. I can ensure that it is fully patched and secure. The entire idea of having ISE is to enhance cybersecurity resilience. The zero trust architecture was coined by the cybersecurity team itself. It was a task given to us in the infrastructure space to see how we can bring resilience into the cybersecurity network and ISE was the solution.
Afeez Adeyemo - PeerSpot reviewer
An affordable tool to monitor routers and access points
A lot of our company's customers who use Portnox Clear feel that since it is an agentless solution, it is not well-equipped enough to cover all the devices in their environment. Sometimes, our company has to explain things to our customers and spend extra time trying to convince them that there are no problems with the solution. I don't know if Portnox can introduce agents for Clear or come up with some other values that would make selling the product easier for our company while ensuring that the customers are more open to receiving Portnox Clear in their environment. As there are no agents in Portnox Clear, the customers of the product cannot download any agents on their devices, making them unsure if the product offers proper security. The aforementioned area can be considered for improvement in the solution. The features that are offered by the product are great. If there is progress in security concerns, then Portnox Clear might have to add new features. The features that the product provides are the standard ones that are in line with the other network assistant tools or solutions in the market.
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Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Network Access Control (NAC) solutions are best for your needs.
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
26%
Computer Software Company
15%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Government
7%
Computer Software Company
16%
Financial Services Firm
12%
University
6%
Comms Service Provider
5%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

Which is better - Aruba Clearpass or Cisco ISE?
Aruba ClearPass is a Network Access Control tool that gives secure network access to multiple device types. You can adapt the policies to VPN access, wired, or wireless access. You can securely ...
What are the main differences between Cisco ISE and Forescout Platform?
OK, so Cisco ISE uses 802.1X to secure switchports against unauthorized access. The drawback of this is that ISE cannot secure the port if a device does not support 802.1x. Cameras, badge readers, ...
How does Cisco ISE compare with Fortinet FortiNAC?
Cisco ISE uses AI endpoint analytics to identify new devices based on their behavior. It will also notify you if someone plugs in with a device that is not allowed and will block it. The user exper...
What do you like most about Portnox CORE?
It's easy to manage and troubleshoot thanks to the lightweight components.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Portnox CORE?
It's not cheap. It's not expensive. It's in the middle, so I'll probably give it a seven out of ten, where one is cheap and ten is expensive.
What needs improvement with Portnox CORE?
We have been having some issues with it. That's why we're considering migrating to Portnox Clear due to some limitations with CORE. At the end of the day, Portnox Clear's capabilities are much more...
 

Also Known As

Cisco ISE
Access Layers Portnox, Portnox CLEAR
 

Interactive Demo

Demo not available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Aegean Motorway, BC Hydro, Beachbody, Bucks County Intermediate Unit , Cisco IT, Derby City Council, Global Banking Customer, Gobierno de Castilla-La Mancha, Houston Methodist, Linz AG, London Hydro, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Molina Healthcare, MST Systems, New South Wales Rural Fire Service, Reykjavik University, Wildau University
Data Realty, Royal London, Wales Millennium Centre, McLaren Construction Group, EL AL Israeli Airlines, 
Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) vs. Portnox and other solutions. Updated: October 2024.
816,406 professionals have used our research since 2012.